Grandiose Narcissism

In “Consumed: Identity and Anxiety in the Age of Plenty,” psychologist Dr. Geoffrey Miller describes that we have this weird mental illness called consumerism and we all are going collectively psychotic. Miller, along with others, pose that everyone’s goal in life is to fulfill prestige or in simple terms, high power of status. I concur with the psychologists along the lines prestige goes. However, I refuse to agree with the statement that refers to consumerism being a “mental illness”. Acknowledging that the world’s wonders are required to be paid to for, it almost becomes completely clear as to why each and every soul urges to strive for prestige. It is not that high power of status they are working towards, but the

Selfish individuals can be categorized as “narcissists,” especially in this era where everybody should comply to the global community. Narcissists find happiness in feeling superior to other people. The late professor explained how some focus on their own betterment rather than the world’s — dissolving the importance of affiliation (Lemaitre, 2016).

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a mental disorder where someone has an exaggerated sense of their own presence, a need for constant admiration from others and they also have a lack of empathy for anyone (Mayo Clinic). A couple questions I have include: How does social media effect society? How does social media have an effect on someone diagnosed with NPD, What are ways you can help someone with NPD, and what are some ways we can conclude that someone may have NPD on social networking sites? Social media is what’s hot right now and someone diagnosed with NPD will only get wrapped up in its web and will be negatively impacted by it. The main focus of my research to further my knowledge includes: The risk factors social media have on someone diagnosed with NPD, signs on social media of someone who may have NPD, and so on.

Recent studies compared teenagers from past generations to those of recent generations and the findings suggest that there is in fact a rise in narcissism among the adolescence in today society. However, what is behind this rising trend? According to some, they believe it can be attributed to the ever-connected world we live. Then there are others who theorize the coddling of the latest generations is perhaps the reason behind the increase of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Whatever the cause these cohorts and their offspring are in fact appearing more self-absorbed, remorseless and narcissistic then ever before.

Have you ever been around someone who seems arrogant? It may not be just arrogance, that individual may have a Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD. Narcissus, a Greek mythological character, fell in love with his reflection in the water and could never pull himself away, so he ended up dying right beside the water after a while (Marcovitz 1). Narcissism became known as being self-centered and was developed after this Greek myth (Marcovitz 1). This disorder affects less than 1% of the American population and it occurs more in men than women (Thomas 1). Later on in life most people with NPD will experience severe symptoms around the ages of forty or fifty years old (Psych 1). Many people who have this disorder either refuse to get help

Narcissism personality disorder according to DSM-V is (and now also in Section II of DSM-5) describe “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy . . .,” indicated by five or more of the following: (a) a grandiose sense of self-importance; (b) preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; (c) beliefs of being special and unique; (d) requirements of excessive admiration; (e) a sense of entitlement; (f) interpersonal exploitativeness; (g) lack of empathy; (h) envy of others; and (i) arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes. Narcissism has been around or studied for thirty years. Rosenfeld thought that that his client had invented an alter ego at first. In the article what part do narcissism play in the narcissistic disorder? It talk about narcissistic disorder arise when an ego-destructive super ego has arisen in the course of development. The article talks about that trauma as a child or infant may also play a big part of narcissism. A large part of narcissistic disorder comes from a wide range of symptoms like self-enhancing and self-serving incentives. (Elsa Ronningstam) described a 21 none year old client that she treated, his parents brought him in to see her and they described him as selfish, inconsiderate, demanding, and demeaning, with threatening and verbally aggressive behavior, and involved in poly substance abuse (pp 434-438). Bob his self-admitted that some

Jean M. Twenge is a famous professor of psychology in San Diego State University. People know Twenge for her study of narcissism. Her infamous and debatable book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young American Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitle- and More Miserable than Ever Before, draws in a lot of attention from psychologists, researchers, as well as common people. Twenge can be seen as a leader for accusing the rise of narcissism in Generation Y. She conducted her study by collecting data from 25 years of personality surveys. She used the answers from the survey to conclude that Millennials are narcissists. With regard to personality surveys, psychologists use indirect and unclear statements to trick people and to expose the inflated ego (Greenberg). Undirected statements in the surveys have too many meanings. Its

Narcissism occurs on a continuum, and everyone thinks narcissistically. The following are examples of some things that may be the result of narcissistic thinking, and can be either spoken or just thought. They may be generated consciously, or subconsciously. If consciously generated, the reason behind them can be found. If generated subconsciously, the reason will be illusive. Subconscious beliefs are responsible for producing the narcissitic idea, and the conscious mind agrees.

Phallic narcissism: When an individual is elitist, a social climber, admiration seeking, self-promoting, bragging and empowered by

Mehdizadeh sets up a group of 18 to 25 years old university students hypothesizing that those “with high narcissism scores can be correlated with a greater amount of Facebook activity… use more self-promoting content.” She also hypothesizes that males will use “descriptive self-promotion”, females will

More often these people are described by others as self-centered, cocky, demanding and manipulative. More often than not, they will preoccupy themselves with feats that are not achievable like fame and at times feel they are worth being treated as famous people even if that is not the case. It is a case that is closely related to antisocial personality, borderline personality disorder as well as histrionic personality disorder (Psychology Today, 2012).

The construct of narcissism finds its origins in ancient Greece and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with the proud and vain figure of Narcissus, cursed by the goddess, Nemesis, to fall in love with his own reflection. However, conceptualizations of pathological narcissism did not became a part of psychological theory until the late nineteenth century with Freud’s eminent essay: On Narcissism (Ronningstam, 2005). As Freud theorized on narcissism and, ironically, experimented with cocaine, the formal diagnosis of addiction was precipitously incorporated into the medical literature in response to increasing uncontrolled narcotic use and growing public health concern (Markel, 2012). Perhaps predictably, theorizing on the possible association between narcissism and addiction, particularly in the psychoanalytic tradition, has been addressed by theorists since. The term narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) was first introduced by Heinz Kohut in 1968, and saw inclusion in formal diagnostic literature in 1980 as a part of the significant revisions to personality disorders in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 1980).

Throughout the years, numerous of researches are conducted to see the connections between social media (namely, Facebook) and narcissism. University of Michigan conducted a research to find the relationship between social media and narcissism. For the first part of the study, the researchers recruited approximately around 486 college undergraduate students with the median age of 19. Meanwhile, 93 adults, mostly white females, with an age mean of 35 years old, were asked by the researchers to complete an online survey for the second part of the study. Participants have to answer questions about their social media use and a personality assessment to measure their level of narcissism (Swanbrow, 2013). Based on the results obtained, Facebook users that scores higher on the personality test tend to have more friends, tag themselves more often in photos posted and update their status more often (Firestone, 2012,

Narcissism is often perceived as any other disorder, employing too much of something; committing excessive amount of time on the internet. However, narcissism disorder is not merely a problem of unmoderated usage, rather it’s the illusion of perceiving reality in false lens architected by vanity and superficial relationships over social media. In Dr. L.D Rosen publication titled Is Facebook creating iDisorders? The link between clinical symptoms of psychiatric disorders and technology use, attitudes and anxiety, Rosen stated “younger generations… born in the 1990s…show a strong urge to report their activities and believe that their social media audience cares about them, two symptoms central to the diagnostic criteria of narcissistic personality disorder” (Rosen 1244). Rosen statement offers a new insight to the effects of extreme social media behaviors on narcissism. Through her work as a social psychologist, Rosen has discovered surprising new information about social disorder. Instead of seeing technology itself as the problem, Rosen thinks, the problem is located "in the relationship between what takes place on screen and off in someone’s ability to shift frames or genres (Rosen 1243)." Rosen

In order to look at the general feelings and actions of characters through the lens of entitlement, it is important to define such a vague and often overused term. A TIME Magazine article, titled “The Me-Me-Me Generation,” focuses on why millennials are the most narcissistic, self-centered generation in the history of western civilization. This attitude spreads not only among the upper and middle classes but reaches as far as those living in poverty, who are selfish but for entirely different reasons than their counterparts. According to the study, this movement of thinking inwards began with trying to artificially inflate the self-esteem of young adults in order to prevent them from thinking terribly about the world around them. That “self-esteem” movement began in the 70s, a decade of historical significance highlighted by the Cold War.